Ziad Doueiry’s latest movie, “The Insult,” was just announced as one of the five nominees in the Best Foreign Film category for the 2018 Oscars. This marks the first time ever that a Lebanese movie has scored such a nomination – the closest we’d gotten before was when Nadine Labaki’s “Where Do We Go Now” won the big prize at the Toronto Film Festival, and scored a nomination for best movie at the Critics Choice Award, losing to “A Separation.”

Released in September in Lebanon, “The Insult” quickly became one of the year’s biggest hits at the Lebanese box office, and a true testament to what Lebanese cinema can do when given proper material. In a time when we are inundated with one mind-numbing stupidity after the next, and chastised for being critical because the only thing you’re allowed to be in Lebanon is supportive, The Insult was a breath of fresh air, and hopefully a new standard by which other Lebanese filmmakers go about their craft.

“The Insult” is about the Palestinian Yasser (Kamel El Basha), a respected foreman in Beirut charged with fixing building-code violations, who encounters car mechanic Toni (Adel Karam) whose building has an illegal drainpipe. After Yasser suggests fixing the drainpipe, Toni slams the door in his face, which prompts Yasser to fix the drainpipe anyway, leading to an insult from Yasser’s side.

This single slur then becomes the hallmark for a court case that divides the nation, pitting Palestinian refugee and construction worker, against a Lebanese Christian. The court case evolves into more than just insults, but into the long standing sectarian grievances that plague our daily lives back home.

The political backdrop of “The Insult” are historical speeches of Bachir Gemayel, with all the political pulsations that such speeches entail on the relationship between Lebanese – mostly Christians – and Palestinians refugees; it’s essentially a cross examination of an aspect of Lebanese society that many of us do not routinely address.

I recently had the honor to watch this movie in New York City. The experience of “The Insult”was humbling. It was a movie so about home, that I was watching from so far away. For the duration of its runtime, I was transported back to the streets of Achrafieh that I knew, to those encounters and discussions that we know all too well. It was so engrossing that I was disoriented, exiting that New York City theatre, as to where I was. It’s a work of art that renders you speechless, worthy of an Oscar nomination.

The entire cast did such a phenomenal job, with career defining performances. I was a proud Lebanese watching those actors soar on screen, in front of Americans who were as engrossed as I was, despite them not being aware of the historical backdrop to which the scenes unfold. It doesn’t matter – the struggles illustrated in “The Insult” are universal, transcending politics, and attaining human nature.

With that movie, Ziad Doueiry has proven once again that Lebanon has enough reservoir of stories to make proper cinema, as our brains are rendered numb with the barrage of worthless junk that fills theaters. Congrats to the makers of the movie and all of the cast, you’ve made us tremendously proud. Best of luck to you, and I hope you bring home that trophy.

When you write – it is helpful to be more specific. People do not live inside your head Lola. ‘We’ is simply a pronoun. Tell people *why* you do not think it will “win”. It is impossible to understand what you meant w/ so little said so cryptically.

Now I am wondering if you are at one of the ten thousand hospitals in Connecticut (half of which have been eaten by Yale) & took the train or drove in; or at one of the several in NYC (inc. Brooklyn etc.).

Check out Alwan for the Arts in the City. I hope you have some time to hit the museums. See the Near Eastern holdings (stolen objects!) at the Met. And the Kevorkian Center for Near East Studies at New York University (NYU) in Greenwich Village off Washington Square park. You can sign up for email alerts from Alwan & the Kevorkian Center. Don’t miss the American Indian Museum (Smithsonian) downtown & the Museum of the Barrio uptown – near the Museum of the City of New York.

I heard this director speak at MoMa (Museum of Modern Art in the City) after a showing of West Beirut (as part of the New York Film Festival) at the film debut here. (A Q&A after the film).

I can’t wait to see this film! So happy about this nomination. I hope it wins – know it will! 🐬🐚🌙🏔🌲

Just another movie hating on Palestinians and ignoring Israel’s atrocities. He’s obsessed with humanizing monsters and turning victims into monsters. Apparently he even told his own neighbor who was Palestinian that Ariel Sharon should have exterminated all of them. Says all I need to know about him.

I don’t watch movies to turn victims into monsters, as a young Jew, having seen with my own eyes what Palestinians have had to endure; I will not lend my time, my voice nor my money to any project that ignores the Nakba, the exodus and the persecution of Palestinians by Arabs and Israelis.